Scientists: Food Addiction Much Like Drug Addiction

After years of believing overeating is simply a matter of will, or rather lack their of, scientists are now discovering that food addiction, much like addiction to illicit drugs, is caused by a change in brain chemistry.

Experts at Yale University are among a community of researchers exploring the science of food addiction and debunking the myths surrounding our physical and emotional ties to food.

“Just like with addictive drugs, where you refine a plant, a poppy, to produce opium, so too do you do that with food,” says Dr. Dana Small rom the John B. Pierce Laboratory and Yale School of Medicine. “Those foods can pack more of a reward punch. And those foods can become to the brain, perhaps on par with addictive drugs. “